Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

The past few weeks have been a whirlwind. Now the winds are dying down, and the stress is beginning to lessen. This afternoon, after picking up the boys at school, we headed to the cinema to see Monsters v. Aliens in 3D. Talk about fun. We were the only ones in the theater, so we didn't have to worry about talking or laughing too loudly. At times, one of us would reach out to grab what seemed to be coming straight at us from the screen. This time of the semester, I have a bit of coasting I can do. The students are finishing up their portfolios, and I have nothing that needs to be graded until those portfolios come in. Then for three days I have to read, evaluate, and factor the final grades. At the end of those three days, I can give a final sigh of done. Once the grading is finished, once the grades are submitted, I will clean my office, turn off the lights, and call it a semester. In front of me will be three months of whatever happens to happen. I kind of like that.

My two youngest kids attend a Catholic school, and this year has been particularly difficult for the older of the two. At this point in the school year, I'm ready to take him out and put him in the public school system. The way I figure it is in putting him in the public school, I'll be paying a lot less for imcompetent teaching. Why pay thousands of dollars for the same in a private school? To me that doesn't make any sense. As such, today I went to the junior high down the street and asked for the registration packet, filled out the forms, and am in the process of getting him set to make the switch. Initially, my son was skeptical about leaving the only school he's ever attended. Over the weekend, though, he warmed up to it. On Sunday, he came to me and said he was actually looking forward to changing schools. He's looking at it as an opportunity rather than something to fear, and for that I am very happy. I see a sparkle in his eyes that I've never seen befor...

Ninety days ago, my husband and I started our own Biggest Loser competition. He elected to walk on a treadmill while I went with the P90X home workout. At first, I was losing more weight than he was even though he easily had more to lose than I do. Being a man, I thought he was going to beat me without even trying, but initially I was the one racking up the lost pounds each week. For the last two weeks, though, I've hit a wall and not lost anything. He's losing two plus pounds to my nothing, so he's now in the lead. I'm not terribly uphappy about this, though, as I have lost about ten pounds and all of my clothes fit so much better now. Even though we are finished with our ninety days, I'm going to continue working out. I do like the results I'm seeing, especially with my abs. I've never really had abs to speak of, but after doing the Ab Ripper X workout for three months, I'm beginning to see some definition. My husband even noticed the other day how def...

I've started on the documentary about the school track team, and I'm finding I have tons to learn about putting a documentary together. I bought a new editing program to work with, thinking if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right. Little did I realize at the time of purchasing it that I was going to have a huge learning curve with this program. I should have figured, though, since it has all the bells and whistles, both of which I really wanted in order to do more than just the basics with the documentary. The first couple of days working with the program, I was splitting and moving parts of the video. I kept trying to add in a transition between two parts, but everytime I viewed what I had put together, I was unhappy because the part of the video that was underneath the title frame would show for a split second when the transition started. I had no clue how to keep the video hidden completely. I eventually deleted everything I had worked on and started over. Fi...

My middle child's birthday cake from last week. I had a lot of fun making it and even more fun eating it. We found out that if you cut pieces only from one side, starting with the bottom layer, the cake will lean, eventually fall over. You can't tell it from this angle so much, but the cake was actually leaning before we began cutting it. When middle child got home from school and saw the finished cake, he laughed, saying, "Awesome cake, Mom." Doesn't get much better than that.

For some time now, I've been feeling burned out when it comes to reading student papers. This semester especially has been a difficult one. I truly love being with my students and talking to them on a daily basis, but the reading part gets to me. I have had a rough time making myself sit down and actually put the time in. The papers, though they are on topics I like, still have the same problems that the papers have had over the years. When it comes to the kinds of errors and the very basic discussions the students create, not much has changed in the seventeen years I've been teaching writing. Very few students have the ability to write something that totally blows me away, but every now and then, I find myself delighted because a student has written something outside the usual. This just happens to be a semester during which no one has written that kind of paper. Hence the relunctance in reading and evaluating them. I keep telling myself I need to do something that will allow ...

My middle child turns twelve today. It's his golden birthday. The other two have already celebrated their birthdays this year, so he's the last. Part of me says thank goodness; all the money going out on gifts and dinners makes my stomach hurt. Another part of me, though, realizes another year has gone by and the kids are inching ever closer to being adults ready to get out on their own. I'm going to miss them so much when they're gone. The sadness that comes over me when I think about them leaving pulls me down, sometimes to the point of tears. If I feel like this now, what will it be like when they actually do leave? I do love birthdays, though. They're very special days and should be celebrated with joy. To do this, the birthday person must awaken to the birthday song being sung loud and out of tune. Then, once the person is good and awake, a morning present must be given to offer a hint of what's to come later in the day. This morning, my son received a pres...